One of the volunteer searchers who have been looking for missing three-year-old boy Kaden Young in the Grand River got a lesson in how dangerous the river conditions remain, despite the water receding and slowing significantly over the past few days.

On Monday, CTV News cameras captured one person falling through ice in the Grand River near Belwood. After a few moments, another volunteer was able to grab them and pull them to safety.

Authorities have said they are grateful for the hundreds of volunteers who have helped search the river for the missing boy, and urged all searchers not to put their personal safety at risk.

“There’s a lot of good people that have came from around the town and around Ontario to help us,” Grand Valley Mayor Steve Soloman said Monday.

“The family needs it. The town needs it. We’ll keep on trying until we find him.”

Young was inside a minivan that was carried into the fast-flowing river Feb. 21. His mother, who was driving, was able to escape. She told police that she pulled her son out of the van, then lost her grip on him when she was pushed over by water.

Wendy Bland, who lives near the river, says she saw the van go into the water and called 911.

She says she was looking out her window to keep an eye on the river levels, as she knew the Grand was expected to rise significantly, and saw a vehicle trying to make its way down the closed road.

“I ran upstairs to see if they were going to make it through the water. With that, I saw the back end being swept toward the river,” she said.

After seeing the vehicle’s lights go under the water, Bland says she called 911 and told them the van would have likely been carried some distance downstream by the time emergency crews arrived.

The following day, she says, she learned that the van had been found but a child who had been in it was missing.

“I just felt like somebody had punched me,” she said.

“Life goes on but for that family, life will never be the same.”

A large-scale police search has been underway every day since last Wednesday, with resources brought to the river including a dive team, police dogs, a helicopter and a drone.

Dufferin County OPP said Monday that they would “slowly begin scaling back” their search as of Tuesday, although they were committed to finding Young and would redeploy those resources should any evidence of his presence be found.

The search has been focused on a 13-kilometre stretch of the river between Waldemar, where the van entered the river, and Belwood, where it is believed that a child would not fit through a grate in the water.

In recent days, the focus has been more intently on areas near Belwood. Many of them are significantly covered in blocks of ice. Determining whether Young may be below that ice is considered difficult and dangerous.

Monday was the third day of searching for Lindsay Kerrigan, a family friend from Orangeville. She said she was impressed by the number of people with no connections to Young – or even to the community, in some cases.

“Everyone just wants to do everything they possibly can to help out,” she said.

With reporting by Nicole Lampa